


Talents Old and New

by Deathstar510



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Discussion of Vorta and Trill Similarities, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Minor Existential Crisis on Ezri's part but that's practically a given with her, Pre-Relationship, Weyoun 6 is FINE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 13:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9550805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deathstar510/pseuds/Deathstar510
Summary: Alone in Quark's and trying to drown out her demons, Ezri finds solidarity from an unexpected source.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly late entry for Trek Rarepair Swap round 7! I decided to play a bit with the few lines that Weyoun 7 has to say to Ezri about both being links in a chain. And of course I'm always a sucker for Ezri's emotional crises. Hope you enjoy!

Ezri Tigan could never remember musical notes.

She’d tried to learn them a long time ago, when she was young enough to still think that she might have a hidden talent just out of reach and waiting to be found.  Of course, pestering her mother into purchasing her several months of lessons only revealed that whatever her hidden talents may be, music definitely wasn’t one of them.  The instruments and the music padds had gone to the back of her closet soon after, stowed away and forgotten about without much fanfare.  Just like any other childhood whim that hadn’t quite worked out, Ezri soon forgot what little she’d managed to hold onto.

Ezri Tigan never learned musical notes but she supposed that the easy way her fingers now moved over the keys in front of her were proof that she really wasn’t Ezri _Tigan_ anymore.  She should be used to the thought but now but she wasn’t and, if she were honest, she might never be.  The nature of Joining made her into someone different and new – a Dax – and maybe if she’d gone through the training it would have been easier to accept that.  Really training would have made a lot of things easier.  A lot of things, but not everything.

She somehow doubted that training would have prepared her for Joran if Jadzia’s memories were anything to go by.

Playing his music kept him quiet though or perhaps simply drowned him out.  Whichever it was, it kept her nights peaceful to play the notes that lingered in the back of her head most days, channel his talents into the music.  In fact it probably made her a little too peaceful.  If she’d stayed just a little more alert instead of losing herself in the empty quiet of near closing time at Quark’s she might have realized that someone else had joined her.  And it wasn’t Quark himself.

“You play well.”

The gentle tune cut off with a startled slam of her hands against the keys that set off a flurry of discordant notes.  Ezri swiveled her barstool around to face the newcomer, knowing what she’d find there before even finishing the turn.  Weyoun Six, his voice familiar more from Jadzia’s memories of his predecessors than any of her own interaction with this version.  Ever since Odo had brought him on station, Ezri had been… avoiding him sounded much more extreme than she wanted it to, but she supposed it was the only thing to call it.  She’d avoided him so successfully that this was probably the first time she was stuck without a way to dodge conversation.

Weyoun had paused after his compliment, waiting for her to respond, and when she failed to do anything but stare like a startled deer he looked almost taken aback.  After a moment he tilted his head with a curious stare.  “Was that… not the right thing to say?”  For all the Vorta were meant to be diplomats apparently that didn’t always translate into one on one interaction.

To be fair to him, Ezri didn’t have one on one skills either.  “I thought Vorta didn’t have a sense of aesthetics?” she blurted without a thought, like she blurted most things, just trying to cover her own silence.  Almost immediately, she winced.  Way to make a newcomer feel welcome.  And that’s what he was, she needed to remember.  A newcomer, a new Weyoun, not any of the ones Jadzia had known.  A Trill of all people should have been able to remember that.  “Sorry.  Sorry.  It wasn’t the wrong thing to say, I just…”  She looked back to the portable piano resting on the counter and worried at her lower lip with her teeth.  “I didn’t think anyone was in here.”

Still with that slight tilt of the head like he was trying to judge her every reaction, Weyoun spoke again, his voice dropping into a quieter tone.  “Would you prefer if I left?”

Ezri almost just said yes. Almost.  These moments had always been time just for her.  Even Quark left her alone without too much argument while she played.  Doubtless he could hear her no matter where he scampered off to while she was here but he didn’t push her to socialize and that was the important thing.

In any other circumstance she would have gone ahead and asked to be alone but after making a mess of the first words she’d ever spoken to him, Ezri couldn’t actually bring herself to ask Weyoun to leave.  She sighed, looking back over her shoulder at the piano.  “It’s fine.  I mean, Quark will be closing up in about twenty minutes, but until then.”

She must not have managed a sincere tone judging from Weyoun’s hesitation, but he still eventually sat himself on the neighboring barstool.  It rotated just a bit and he let it slowly drift, spinning him around to face the empty bar.  Ezri just turned her own stool back around, fingers resting on the piano’s keys.  Not playing.  She couldn’t bring herself to actually play with an audience.

The silence stretched out from seconds into a full minute before Weyoun cleared his throat, turning his seat to face her again. “ You were right.”

Ezri blinked, finally looking up from the keys.  “Right about what?”

“That the Founders didn’t see the need for their diplomats to have an appreciation of arts and music.”  He cast a glance at her piano and the slightest smile crossed his face.  It actually looked rather smug in Ezri’s opinion but she supposed she couldn’t entirely blame him for that.  The Dominion might have bred the smug expression into the Weyoun line as purposefully as the slant for diplomacy.

She tapped one key, sounding a quiet note.  “So why bring it up?”

“I’ve been speaking with Odo about how I might…”  He paused to look for the right word – a habit Ezri was familiar with – though hers tended less towards actual thoughtfulness and more towards awkward fumbling.  “…Endear myself to the station.  He suggested that giving compliments, when appropriate, might make people see more of a divide between myself and my predecessors.”  He sighed.  “Though I’m not seeing much of a change in people’s reactions to me.  You may be the first to not ask that I leave.”

Now Ezri was really glad that she hadn’t gone with her instinct to tell him to go away.   He had a wounded tone speaking of the distrust and she didn’t think she could forgive herself if she’d added to it. 

She tapped out another single note – she couldn’t play with someone else there but this at least kept them from falling into silence.  “Well, if you wanted to keep trying that I think you’d have more success with things that people know you’re sincere about.  If you can’t tell if music’s good there’s not much point in complimenting it.”

“You have a point there.”  He chuckled, eyes drifting to the piano as she pressed a third note.  “Was it though?”

“Was it what?”

“Was it good?  I’m afraid I have little to judge it by.”

Now that she didn’t know how to answer.  She knew it was good, that she could have said without hesitation, but the words stuck in her throat before she could try to voice them.  Finally, she just said.  “It’s good but it’s not mine.”  Very little was, honestly.  So much of what she could do she could point to each of the previous Daxs and say it came from them.  “You’re not the only one living in the shadow of your last few versions,” she offered as the only explanation.

Suddenly, recognition in his face.  Apparently this was as relatable as she thought it might be.  Score one for Ezri, even if it was a small score.  Weyoun nodded his understanding.  “Jadzia, wasn’t it?  Dax’s previous host.  The Weyouns hold her in high respect, though their interactions were brief.”

Jadzia preferred it that way but Ezri doubted she had to _tell_ Weyoun that.  Six had always seemed a little more attached to reality than the others, she was sure he knew already.  “Jadzia, Curzon, and those are just the ones people on this station knew.  There’s a whole list before them.”

“Was Jadzia the musician then?”

Ezri gave a little shake of her head.  “No, not her.  This one was… a couple Daxs back.”  She didn’t say the name, as if actually speaking Joran’s name out loud might somehow bring his thoughts to the forefront of her mind again. She came here to drown Joran out, not boost him.  “He didn’t have much, but he had music.  Jadzia and Curzon were both more… sweet talkers I guess.”

“And you are?”  Another curious tilt of the head.  “If he had music and they had… talking, what do you have?”

That brought her mind to a sudden halt and she looked down, mouth twisting up into a frown.  “I wish I could tell you.  I wasn’t sure what I had before I became a Dax and now… well now I’m really not sure.”  Her talents as Ezri Tigan had been nothing to write home about but at least she’d never had to put them up against a whole line of Trill.  “I’m a councilor, but I’m not sure that counts as a talent.”

A couple notes came next, almost playing a tune but not quite.  The motions came automatically, Ezri hardly realized she was doing it until it was already done.  She took her hands off the keys entirely.  “Even if I tried to describe it I think I’d just give you a list of what I don’t have then what I do have.”  Even the rank wasn’t hers.  Benjamin had gotten that for her based on Jadzia’s work after all.  “Which is kind of the opposite of what I’d be trying to prove.”

“A feeling I can understand.”  He spoke to her but his eyes still rested on the piano.  “It’s… difficult to set one link completely apart from the rest of the chain.  For those like us, I’m not certain it’s possible.”

“I don’t know if I’d say that.  You’re not like the other Weyouns.  Not the ones Jadzia knew.”

”And you’re not like the Dax that Weyouns four and five met either.”  Finally he actually looked at her, though his eyes were still distant like he was deep in thought.  “But that wasn’t what I meant.  More that… who I am would not be the same without the memories of the previous Weyouns.  I’m certain that you would not be either.”

He wasn’t wrong.  She had changed, was a Dax instead of a Tigan now.  Still.  “I don’t get your point.”

Weyoun smiled again.  “And I’m not sure I do either just yet.  But I believe that, in this case, it’s that you can’t dismiss a talent just because it originates from the Dax memories.”  Again to the piano.  “…I’d like to learn what makes music… good.  Do you think you could play again for me?”

Ezri almost said no.  Almost.  Then she raised her hands again, let her fingers rest on the keys like they belonged there. 

“I guess one more song won’t hurt.”


End file.
